# Battleship versus Aircraft carrier **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099 "2012-05-25T20:05:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/121 "2012-07-19T13:47:36Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Can the crew just kind of casually flip a “blow these reactors and carrier” switch, or would that take a little more work? Sure, if you can put a carrier and battleship into an unarmed ramming contest, you can rig a “blow up reactor now” button. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/122 "2012-07-26T07:20:33Z")
I hate discussing Samar Strait because it blows away what used to be my favorite theory: “a carrier needs to plan and coordinate like God himself while a battleship needs to get lucky only once.” Kurita was not on a suicide mission. The plan was for a near-surgical attack on carriers and transports and then bug-out. Straight out of Mahan. You guys might as well play simulation instead of dwelling on Taffy 3, or even HMS Glorious. 10 battleships vs. 10 carriers. No escorts. Open-upward stats (make your carriers as big and fast as possible, make your battleships as big and armored as possible.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/123 "2012-07-26T11:48:44Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Sure, if you can put a carrier and battleship into an unarmed ramming contest, you can rig a “blow up reactor now” button. FTR, that’s a different thread. ---
**Author:** ![ForTheLoveOfPot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6de8d8/32.png) [@ForTheLoveOfPot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForTheLoveOfPot)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/124 "2012-09-27T00:34:34Z")
First of all Aircraft have usually 1-2 destroyers to defend it and two missile cruisers and they have a better radar the battleship have no chance. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/125 "2012-09-27T01:55:43Z")
Read the OP, **FTLOP** , neither vessel gets its battle group for backup. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/126 "2012-09-27T18:30:08Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > No respectable carrier commander can take the shame of losing, so here is what would happen. The carrier would race toward the battleship and as collision was imminent, the carrier’s captain would order the reactors to be forced into a critical state, which would blow both ships to smithereens. > > A draw! As a former atom jockey have to point out that if the reactor was not critical, the carrier wouldn’t move at all, and in fact acceleration will cause the reactors to go **super** critical.\* \*Critical just means it is producing enough neutrons to sustain fission at the current level (stable power production) and supercritical means the neutron level is high enough to increase the fissions, subcritical means fission levels are decreasing. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/127 "2012-09-28T00:39:25Z")
If the carrier started off at full steam and started a ramming run, it would only be about 16 or 17 minutes until contact. If it started at rest, it would take longer, obviously. Would the big guns themselves be enough to sink it in the time period? ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/128 "2012-09-28T05:14:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But what if the battleship was filled with barrels of nitroglycerin? You’d get something like [**the Halifax explosion**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion). Band name! (Or sports-team name.) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/129 "2012-09-28T07:28:56Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > If the carrier started off at full steam and started a ramming run, it would only be about 16 or 17 minutes until contact. If it started at rest, it would take longer, obviously. > > Would the big guns themselves be enough to sink it in the time period? Going by the set-up in the OP, a Nimitz with no aircraft vs. an Iowa as they existed when retired, almost certainly. The 32 Tomahawks and 16 Harpoons the Iowa’s had when they retired are going to cover the distance in little over a minute if that and will easily saturate the Nimitz’s own point defenses and make a lot of hits. 20,000 yards is well, well within effective range of the Iowa’s main battery and with radar directed gunfire they are certain to start getting hits by the second or third salvo. The rate of fire of the [16in/50s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16%22/50_caliber_Mark_7_gun) on the Iowa was 2 rounds a minute. In an undamaged state the Nimitz would have at best a 2 or 3 knot speed advantage over the Iowa; if the commander of the Iowa felt he was in any danger of the Nimitz closing to ram he would either move obliquely away from the Nimitz while still keeping the full battery of 9 16-inch rifles able to fire; or if really worried put the Nimitz directly behind him which would still allow turret C of 3 16-inch rifles to fire with the Nimitz barely able to gain ground. The combination of fires and flooding would soon cut into the speed the Nimitz could make even without damage to the engine rooms. So IMO, there is no way the Nimitz could close on the Iowa to ram before the accumulation of damage cut into her ability to maintain any speed advantage and would quickly be unable to close the distance at all unless the Iowa chose to allow it in order to more efficiently sink the Nimitz by unmasking the full main battery and the secondary battery of 12 5in/38 DP guns. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/130 "2012-09-28T07:47:41Z")
So… this is GD. What’s the conclusion from this thread - that the U.S. navy needs more battleships and fewer aircraft carriers? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/131 "2012-09-28T16:01:19Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So… this is GD. What’s the conclusion from this thread - that the U.S. navy needs more battleships and fewer aircraft carriers? That the US navy should avoid having its carriers located within 10 mi of rouge US battleships, if any are taken out of museum duty and recommissioned. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/132 "2012-09-28T16:34:14Z")
Rouge?! What happened to battleship gray? Anyway, if anyone wants to see the _Iowa_ kicking ass, I recommend _American Warships_, a cheesy but well-conceived Asylum movie, meant to lamprey onto the success of _Battleship_. The acting and effects are awful, but the premise is actually far better. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/133 "2012-09-28T16:38:17Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > That the US navy should avoid having its carriers located within 10 mi of rouge US battleships, if any are taken out of museum duty and recommissioned. But what if they can deploy ex-SEALs to work as chefs on all the battleships? Would this provide an adequate level of security to protect against the danger of recommissioning an enroguification? I assume you meant rogue rather than rouge - even in these more enlightened times I don’t think rouge has any place in naval affairs (other than actual affairs, natch). ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/134 "2012-09-28T16:47:05Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > But what if they can deploy ex-SEALs to work as chefs on all the battleships? Would this provide an adequate level of security to protect against the danger of recommissioning an enroguification? > > I assume you meant rogue rather than rouge - even in these more enlightened times I don’t think rouge has any place in naval affairs (other than actual affairs, natch). > **[Operation Petticoat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Petticoat#Historical_basis)** > > Operation Petticoat is a 1959 American World War II submarine comedy film in Eastmancolor from Universal-International, produced by Robert Arthur, directed by Blake Edwards, and starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. > The film tells in flashback the misadventures of a fictional U.S. Navy submarine, USS Sea Tiger, during the Battle of the Philippines in the opening days of the United States involvement in World War II. Some elements of the screenplay were taken from actual incidents that happened ... > [@](#): > > Some of the plot points of the movie were based on real-life incidents, such as the sinking of the submarine USS Sealion at the pier at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines, Commander Sherman’s letter to the supply department on the inexplicable lack of toilet paper (based on an actual letter to the supply department of Mare Island Naval Shipyard by Lieutenant Commander James Wiggin Coe of the submarine USS Skipjack), and the need to paint a submarine pink due to the lack of enough red or white lead undercoat paint. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/135 "2012-09-28T19:00:33Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So… this is GD. What’s the conclusion from this thread - that the U.S. navy needs more battleships and fewer aircraft carriers? While tempted to reply ‘This is GD, we don’t need no stinking conclusions,’ I’ve given it some thought (no snide remarks on how much, thank you) and have come to the conclusion that the navy needs a way to get carriers close to battleships without being detected. With all of the savings from no longer carrying planes, a good starting point would be kidnapping [Michael Paré](http://www.fanpix.net/picture-gallery/michael-pare-picture-16006835.htm) to find out how to make ships invisible and/or time warp them, as he must know something from his starring role in _The Philadelphia Experiment_. I’m also told that he is ‘yummy’ by those into that sort of thing. To keep things fair, I also recommend kidnapping and interrogating [Jessica Paré](http://www.wildsound.ca/images/jessica_pare_belly_button.jpg) as she is considered ‘yummy’ to those not into that sort of thing, or into both of those sorts of things, or the sorts of things not requiring any male parts at all; and there is every reason to believe she must have the knowledge we seek since she has the same last name and thus must be related to Michael Paré. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/136 "2012-09-28T20:57:17Z")
I would like to point out that the shells from the Iowa were designed to punch through armor that is as thick as the armor on the Iowa. By comparison the skin of an aircraft carrier is made of tissue paper. Those shells are going to go DEEP inside before they go boom! ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/137 "2012-09-30T03:38:02Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Could the battleship hit it with the guns from ten miles? _Bismarck_ and _Hood_ were fifteen miles apart when the shooting started, though they’d closed to about nine miles by the time _Hood_ was sunk… ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/138 "2012-09-30T04:34:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Could the battleship hit it with the guns from ten miles? As I wrote before, 10 miles is not only well within the range of the 16" guns, it is within the range (barely) of the 5" secondary batteries of the battleship. ETA: as far as ramming goes, as the carrier gets closer, have the secondary batteries (5" turrets) concentrate on the carrier’s island. A few hits there and there will be nobody alive driving that sucker. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/139 "2012-09-30T07:32:08Z")
I remember this thread! Now… answer THIS… What if the battleship were filled with lions, and the aircraft carrier were filled with tigers? Who wins now? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099/140 "2012-09-30T08:02:10Z")
Better yet, the battleship is crewed by pirates, and the carrier by ninjas. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battleship-versus-aircraft-carrier/623099.md?page=8)